The Rewards of Power
by The Revisionist
Summary: A revision of L. Frank Baum's 'The Magic of Oz' in the style of Gregory Maguire's Oz. The tale of a boy born with extraordinary power and his ultimate misuse of it.
1. Prologue

**The Rewards of Power**

_A Revisionist Work based on L. Frank Baum's 'The Magic of Oz'_

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**Introduction and Disclaimer**

I began reading Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West perhaps just over a month ago when I became infatuated with the music from the stunningly powerful musical it spawned. I completed the work of literary genius and went on to Son of a Witch. Both novels I found inspired me to think more about the Oz that Lyman Frank Baum (my own ancestor) had created. The utopian front that had so many political hints within that Maguire so wonderfully turned into his award-winning novels. As such I decided, as a tribute to his work, to write this piece in his world and hopefully in a style that compliments his own while adding a touch of my own imagination.

As a general note, I would like to say that Wicked, The Wizard of Oz or anything hitherto associated is in any way owned by or affiliated with me. Many if not all of the characters are owned by Baum, Maguire or Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman. I am just, in effect, borrowing the characters.

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**Prologue **

The squadron marched in formation towards the pillar of dark smoke rising up into the sky. From their vantage point on the top of the hill they could see the fleeing silhouettes of men women and children escaping from the flames with what little possessions they could muster, piles of clothes and food packed onto carts lit in a dull orange glow from the flames that whirled and twisted about the settlement, pulling down the weighty timber beams and thrusting clouds of white hot ash into the air. The screams of those trapped within the burning houses had slowly diminished as the troop of Gale Forcers had moved closer and closer to the spot of the attack and as they began the trek down the slippery dirt track, they pulled their rifles closer to their bodies, their hands poised ready for any sort of onslaught.

The Defence Ministry of the Emerald City had been flooded with reports of Animal revolt in the southern forests of Munchkinland. From what information could be gathered, the army of creatures were being lead by an illegal H'yupii sorcerer and a Nome however verification was still in order. From their base in the lower forests of the fertile countryside they travelled from settlement to settlement slaughtering those who did not join their cause and burning the place to the ground. In a matter of weeks they would have reached the Emerald City's eastern entrance and with a force of deprived Animals numbering well over ten thousand, they would storm the city and bring the place to the ground. The ban on Sorcery meant that no longer did Oz have a powerful enough magician to challenge this young prodigy. Lady Glinda, now well into her sixtieth year, was in a state where her health was steadily declining due to a generous dosage of gout and pneumonia and spent much of her life being tended to by Maunts from the Royal Mauntery of Oz while her Cabinet, the Council of Ozma, governed Oz in her stead. In the time after the Emperor's removal, Oz had slipped into a desperate state of chaos. General Andor of the Emerald City Guard acted as Oz's dictator during the Nome Wars and when the foreign forces were finally thwarted he reinstated Glinda the Good as Oz's governor. She placed various laws to restrict the power of those who would be able to topple the balance and subjugate the country back into anarchy, one of which being the Sorcery Act, by which Sorcery and the study of the magical arts was made restricted to all but herself who was, it was thought, the most powerful sorceress in Oz. However, Animal degradation laws set decades before remained untouched and with the sudden emergence of this renegade magician, it would seem that his access to power would come through the revolution of all those Animals deprived of the right to be equal to live in towns and have the same quality of life as humans did. At this point in time, a large squadron of Gale Forcers had been deployed at the site of the last onslaught to hopefully slow the Animal's invasion.

By the time the regiment had marched its way in formation to the ruined site, the sun was well on its way to the centre of the sky. The squadron took a rest on the fallen wooden planks that had once made up small thatched cottages and barns, careful to make sure they brushed them down of ash before they dirtied up their brilliant green uniforms. As the deployed cooks opened up the field rations of tinned meat and nemplant beans, one of the Forcers, a messy haired youth with dark ruddy brown hair and a tanned complexion made his way over to the Commander who was seated in a spot under a field umbrella, further shaded by a small huddle of pine trees.

"Commander," he greeted the man formally as a mark of respect. Some would have said that formality mattered more in the Gale Forcers than it did in the Royal Army of Oz. "Do you mind if I sit a while with you?"

"Not at all, Captain, not at all!"

The Commander was a warm character, a bull of a man with a personality to match. His round face was fiery and blushing, his greying hair matching his wonderfully curled moustache. His brilliant blue eyes glittered with knowledge. His service to the Land of Oz had lasted well into the years of the Wizard. While he had just been a fledgling then, his many years in the Force had earned his the respect of his entire squadron. "Now then Master Kalan, what can I do for you?" he asked, nodding and taking the plate of field rations, still steaming from the heat of the pan as the kitchen boy handed it to him.

Kalan's eyes stared the man directly in the face. Born an H'yuppi it was courteous to always look directly towards those of higher rank as a mark of respect. "Sir, if you don't mind my asking, I don't understand why a rebel force of Animal activists poses such a threat to the Emerald City?"

"It's not that my boy. These Animals have travelled from the farthest reaches of Munchkinland. The laws may not have been relinquished, but Animals are once again still part of our infrastructure. It may be illegal, but Animals are still employed, they have housing in all major cities and yet just because they were once degraded by a tyrant, they think they are entitled to more. The Royal Regiments are perfectly capable of handling a large scale force, old boy; it's what banner they march under." He lowered his voice. "The sorcerer… Nobody practices magic any more, not since the ban anyway. It makes one wonder how dedicated the H'yup tribes are to the reunion of Munchkinland as a solo state to the Land of Oz, producing such a dangerous threat as that."

"If you don't mind me saying, sir, I don't blame you for thinking such thoughts… The H'yupii are simple people, they don't care for magic they care for survival through the winter. They wouldn't spite a country that they prefer to live away from it would draw too much attention to themselves. They're the only legal Lurlinist community left in Oz. I hate to have to say it, but comparatively, they are far too primitive to have formulated a plan such as that. Apart from the fact it would have spelled doom for their society… the army would be down on them in days."

"Evil works in mysterious ways, old boy," replied the Commander, his eyes glittering, "Only through the Unnamed God can we be purged of all wickedness… Lurlinism is a pagan cult and a barbaric one at that!"

His ranting subsided and the Commander wheezed to cool his blushing face. He reasserted himself and spooned a large helping of canned meat and beans into his mouth, chomping on the tasteless mixture noisily. However, as his eyes began to slide over the creature sitting in the branches of the tree his chewing began to slow. The sparrow hopped down a branch, and then another, the sunlight glinting off its beautifully feathered wings. It's eyes were dark, and as Kalan watched intently, he could detect the flicker of rage within the beast as it levelled itself with the Commander's head.

"Greetings, Commander…" hissed the Sparrow with fierce intent. The Commander dribbled a small speck of brown paste down the front of his tunic. The Sparrow cocked its head to one side. "My, my, humans are messy these days. Here, let us clean you up…" In a second the bird had let out an ear-piercing screech. From the dark depths of the tree's came a rumbling like thunder and as the soldier's looked up their fun-filled faces suddenly turned to horror as the witnessed the dark column rising up out of the small glade. Wing beat upon wing as hundreds upon hundreds of Birds and Beasts of the air from Robins to Eagles, and Gryphons to Wyverns towered up into the stratosphere, a whirling army of Animals that in a millisecond had begun their dive down upon the servicemen, beak and talon brandished, gouging eyes, tearing cloth and flesh is explosions of gore. Kalan leaped to his feet brandishing his rifle. With a sweep he cut down a Jackdaw that came swooping towards him. He watched as out of the piles of ash in blasts of white smoke jumped other Creatures: Bears and Foxes and Badgers all who had lain hidden beneath the rubble of the settlement waiting to strike. With a blow he was struck down. As he lay on the ground he was pinned by a creature that he had never come across before, a Monkey with silvery grey fur and yet the strangest things attached to its back: A pair of wings.

"Night night sunshine!" taunted the Creature, bearing its teeth before clobbering him over the head with a piece of marble.


	2. Lurlinemas Eve

**Lurlinemas Eve**

The small wooden buildings of H'yup sagged against the weight of the Lurlinemas snow that drifted down in tiny glittering orbs from the dark grey clouds above. Through the howling of the winter wind could be heard the roaring laughter and cheering echoing out of the village tavern, the faint melody of ancient Lurlinemas hymns being sung in the streets and the shouts of children as they, in their dainty knitted tunics and jumpers, frivolously pelted large balls of snow at one another as the sun began to set behind the peak of the great mountain the villagers knew only as "Old Munch." It was only a couple of hours now before the entire H'yupii populace gathered in the centre of the village to sing, chant and dance as yet another Day of Lurlina dawned upon them and another year passed away. Already in the square, the great tents were being erected ready for the great feast and the Tribe Leaders were readying their readings from the Oziad.

Binaric Aru tightened the belt around his waist and finished combing his hair, placing the fish bone comb down on the dresser and adjusting his collar. The dim lamplight shed a gloom across the room, his shadow flickering in the corners and unnerving the cat, whose eyes darted with it's every movement while she lay motionless of the bedspread. His cheeks were beginning to sag with age, he ascertained, looking himself up and down. Forty years had passed that his eyes had seen, and it had gone in the blink of an eye. How he wished he could relive those good old days with his friends at the Shiz University, going out every night, meeting with girls and more often than not, not just for a good chat. Studying in the great halls of Ozma Towers where each and every day his skills at the many subtle and mutating arts of sorcery grew and grew. And for what? Nothing. Sometimes he relished the exquisite irony of the fact that Lady Glinda was called Glinda the Good. While her intent might have been pure, her Sorcery Act had put hundreds of thousands of people out of work. He sighed, trying desperately to rub away the dark circles under his eyes. While his devotion to Lurlina was unsparing, he had developed an unsavoury and secret disdain for Lurlinemas. It would be fifteen years tomorrow that he would have to sit and relive that fateful day when his only true love had been carelessly torn from him. Sometimes he wondered why the Fairy Goddess scorned her children so. And then he remembered that the god's purposes were not always so blatant to be seen by mortal eyes. He wiped a tear from his eye and picked up the small black and white photograph that had been taken of the two of them on their Handfasting. He had never quite understood how a snapshot could be captured in an image like that, but then again he was no scientist. He traced her outline with the tip of his finger. She had been an exotic woman, with the most striking eyes he had ever seen, glimmering black hair that fell in waves down over her shoulders. By the time they had met, a good three years after his graduation from the Shiz University, her father had migrated west in his old age prematurely and with no mother she had appeared little more than a lost cause in the crowd. Her father had told her that her mother died during labour, a sad case, but she got on with her life. 'Life isn't for looking backwards' she would say 'the past cannot be changed; only the future can be determined by your actions.' It was obvious enough really, but whenever she had said it, it had made it seen so much more real, more relevant.

They had gone travelling. Both were keen sorcerers, perhaps she more than him, and so with the mixed reviews of magic in Oz, some places they were met with welcome and others disdain, but after the years of treks from the Vinkus to the badlands, Binaric thought it better to settle down and start a family. The settlement of H'yup was a close knit community and little accepting of outsiders, but the snow-tribe seemed to take great joy of her coming to live with them. But with her foreign blood, so unused to the freezing cold winters, her body quickly succumbed to illness while she was pregnant with their son, Kiki, and he presumed that the birth had finished her off on Lurlinemas Day. A sad sequence of events, yes.

From that moment on, Binaric distanced himself from the tribe. His motherless child was cared for by an Ama whom he hired from a high society in Gillikin while, for days at a time, he locked himself away in his study to scan the many pages of a fabulous artefact he had come across. Since the death of his wife, Binaric had become little more than obsessed with sorcery. Every weekend or near enogh he would travel to neighbouring cities if not the Emerald City itself to attend sorceric conferences but most of all auctions where he would bring back trinkets of lost civilisations or tomes bound in leather and filled with arcane secrets. Once though, he returned with an object curious and fantastic… a book bound in jet black leather clasped with silver and with pages of brilliant purple vellum. The writing, in some curious script, was drawn in glittering silver ink that seemed to drift from its place and reword itself on the page as he watched. This grimmerie had vast power… he could tell. He could remember, with the book came a collection of papers, translations it seemed, of the mysterious ancient script the book was written in. Soon the book would become known as not only item of great power, but also of great grief…

The book had transformed his life as a sorcerer, and ironically at that. He remembered one day, while searching through his notes, hat he came across a word… A word that to his eyes looked unpronounceable. At first glance, he thought it nonsense to even consider pronouncing such an incantation. Sure enough, spells were meant to be archaic and hard to pronounce. Why would the syllables of the universe be easy to speak, for that was all that a spell was, using sound to tap into the very substance of the universe and change it to your own liking. After years of failed attempts, it would seem that with a combination of throaty noises, hisses and splutters he could pronounce the 'word' and work miracles. The word forced whatever the magician focused upon to immediately transform into whatever he willed it to. Of course, releasing the secrets he had learned out into the open would cause trouble. Entrusting such power to untrustworthy people was a risk and a world-changing risk at that. It was so, that he decided to keep the secret to himself. Of course, when Kiki came of age and grew out of his teenage 'menopause' as Binaric liked to refer to it as, he would entrust what sorceric knowledge he had to him. But until then, it was likely the secret would stay firmly within his own head.

Replacing the picture on the dresser and putting away all of his implements, comb, blusher and hair wax, he picked up a small silver key and replaced the grimmerie inside it's small slot in a compartment under the floorboards before locking it up and placing the rug back down. Standing and brushing himself off he paced out of the room and towards the living room where the hearth was in full flame, sending a warm golden glow across the quaint circular room lined with pictures and bookshelves. In one of the armchairs around the fire, Kiki sat, his hair jet black like his mothers, the same protruding jaw. He had his fathers nose however, slightly crooked. His brilliant emerald eyes stared down into the volume of Ancient Qua'ati folklore. Binaric cleared his throat to try and gain the boys attention. Kiki looked up with disdain before replacing his gaze towards the pages of the book.

"I take it you're still going then?" He queried coldly without looking up.

"Your mother wouldn't want us here replacing what joviality we could be having with mourning over her…"

"She wouldn't want to be forgotten," he hissed before he could finish.

"There's little chance of that!" Binaric snapped back.

"You know what, why don't you just go… It's not like we'd spend any time together for Lurlinemas anyway… you don't know me and you never will. You had a chance to be my father and you passed it off. So why don't you just fuck off down to your service and stay there!"

With that, and before Binaric could scold his son's rudeness, he had sprung from the chair and departed through his bedroom door, slamming it behind him.


	3. Visions

**Visions**

A gust of cool air blasted through the small uneven crack which split the edge of the door from the wood panelled floor, startling Kiki out of his mind-consuming rage and bringing him back from a world of twister bitter hate to the world where he wished it could all come true. Every single day he was dictated, ordered, and pushed by his father. Not directly of course, oh no, his Ama was on strict orders from that slimy piece of shit. He despised the man who had left him parentless, the selfish and arrogant sorcerer who he would forever have to call his father. Kiki had grown up to be as cold and callous as he was today. His father had been so self absorbed in his studies that he had hired a batty old crone to take care of him. With no mother or father to learn from, he had been brought up to see the world for what it was, for what people discovered it was once they left the comfort of their homes, a harsh and cruel world. People always said that children could be vicious and cruel without meaning it, but with no parents to tell him so, the hardships he had endured tore down deep inside of him.

Slipping off his straw mattress and sliding lazily across the floor, he gazed out of the dusty window that separated him from the cold winter wind that blustered outside. He could see the small shape of his father taking the mountain track down to the collection of brightly coloured tents lit by oil lamps in the centre of the village. If he hushed his breathing he could make out the sound of the festivities beginning. The well-known tune of 'In Dayes of Olde,' an old hymn to Lurline which he had never bothered to learn to words to. Kiki had never indulged himself in the rich and exciting festival of Lurlinemas. It seemed pointless to celebrate a festival that symbolised the coming together of families when his was so battered and blustered, torn apart by the cruel storm that was fate. It seemed to him, that if he were to concentrate on his studies and earn a scholarship into the Shiz University on Life Sciences or perhaps Grammatica he would be able to have a decent life and peace in death. Up until the age of about nine his father had been adamant that he began tutorage in sorcery. Obviously with the Sorcery Act now in place, the one subject he seemed to excel in had been cruelly ripped away from him. It seemed, he supposed, that the one thing that he could thank his father for was his good judgement of what studies he would go on to do. How he missed the afternoons where he would be able to transfigure a flower into a fork without even the need for tutorage. He seemed to have an affinity for it. His Ama, Ama May, had told him it came from both of his parents. Ama May was such a strange creature. She was quadling by birth, which you could tell from the fair hair and slightly reddened skin. Ofcourse May was not her real name, but she had once known a girl called May and loved the name so much that she had taken it as her own. She had told him often that she had once had a child. Grown up and tossed into the cruel world by now, she would say. She said she had known his mother and what a wonderful woman she had been. Which reminded him of what he had to do…

Pulling back the bolt that held his wooden bedroom door in place he slipped out into the sudden gloom of the sitting room. The gust from outside had extinguished the fire and scattered black dust across the authentic Scrow-crafted rug. Pulling a splint from a small copper vessel which was still warm from the heat of the fire, he took it to the oil lamp which hung by his father's bedroom door and lit the end sending a small glimmer of light out into the late evening darkness. Piling more logs on and wetting them with oil, he proceeded to attempt at lighting the liquid which was rapidly disappearing into the many cracks of the wood. Infuriated by his failed attempts, he let out a cry of anguish and almost instantaneously, the fire burst into rapid roaring flame. Kiki eyed the splint carefully before shrugging the feeling of queer coincidence off and stubbing it out on the tiled hearth.

Dipping his hand in through a small plaster whole in the wall by the edge of the fireplace, he retrieve a small bundled of wrapped up papers he had kept hidden behind there for the whole year ever since the last Lurlinemas. Now that he was fifteen, he was a man, at least in H'yuppi terms he was. Unbundling the package he lay out a four scraps of paper inscribed with symbols of power he had copied down in his study of sorcery. Pulling a couple of candles from the mantelpiece, he lit each one in the blazing inferno that was the fire and place them in a circle around the four symbols he had arranged in a diamond shape on the tiled hearth. Looking up to make sure nobody was at the window, he unfurled the largest piece of paper and set it in the centre. Upon it, in charcoal was a sketch of a woman's face. She was beautiful at that, with long waving hair that fell over her shoulders. A prominent chin and aquiline nose, almost like the nose of a Vinkus person when so often caricatured in the many press pieces distributed from the Emerald City.

Every year he prepared this 'ritual' as it were. He placed the picture down and closed his eyes, slowing his breathing. Sorcery was illegal, but once every year his necessity had stayed in place since the time before such a ban was enforced.

As he began to chant the incantation the candlelight flickered. There was silence in the room all but the distant crackling of the fire. In his mind's eye, Kiki could picture her, his mother, he called out to her with his mind, chanting the complicated syllables of the chant.

_Kiki…_

The candles guttered. The light in the room dimmed slightly.

_Kiki…_

The sigil on the left of the diamond flitted. Was it just the breeze? Kiki's eyes flitted open, the syllables of the chant dying on his tongue. Had he just heard his name?

_Kiki…_

The candles flitted out. The room coldened. The sigil flitted as if on an imaginary breeze up into the air and into the guttering flames of the fire, it's scribbled lines shaped like a storybook witches had melting away into the heat.

_Kiki…_

He spun on his knees and fell backwards as the cloaked figure swept across the floor towards him. Eyes flaring, skin the colour of deepest emeralds. Kiki screamed out and blinked and in an instant she was gone.

_Kiki…_

His name still resounded on the wind. Breathing deeply, his heart racing in his chest Kiki managed to steady himself enough to rise to his feet. His eyes glazed the room, from the burning fireplace to the candles… the candles which had melted right down in the space of minutes. The charred remains of the sigils were kept close. Slowly he peered around at the room. From the chairs to the front window to his bedroom door to his father's door… _which was open._


End file.
